


It's worse for them

by Darrilshrugs



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2019-01-05 21:45:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12198009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darrilshrugs/pseuds/Darrilshrugs
Summary: *Spoilers for Episode 112*Although Vax comes back again, things have changed.





	It's worse for them

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. This is the first thing I've written in ages, and the first thing I have shown to anyone in even longer.
> 
> I've really enjoyed diving into the CR community of artists and writers, and I've been inspired by many of them here. Thank you so much for your awesome work!
> 
> I haven't had an editor, and am not a great self-editor, so let me know if I have made egregious typographical errors. Also, please let me know if I screwed up tagging this in any way.
> 
> I would be happy to entertain thoughts and comments. It was fun to try to get my thoughts about these characters and how they sound down onto a page.
> 
> Thanks!

It’s different when he comes back this time. Pike is again the first one he sees, she’s sitting by his things, shaking and brushing (dust? No, not dust, ashes) out of his armor and boots. She sees him, and the grim look on her face brightens for a moment, then it flattens again. He knows it’s not because he’s naked again, she’s seen all there is to see by now.

He approaches and crouches, and she hands him his undergarments. “Hi Vax, I’m going to wash these out for you.” Her voice lacks some of the sunniness it often projects. She doesn’t look at him again, scooping up his armor and boots and walks towards the pond, where he can hear and see the others.

He sits on the edge of the clearing, back against a tree. He watches Pike speak with them, and gesture back towards him. Vex and Keyleth stand up and turn. He can’t describe the looks on their faces.

Vex makes it a few steps before breaking into a run, throwing herself into an awkward pile with him at the base of the tree. She doesn’t say anything, just holds him and shakes for a long moment. When she pulls away from him to kiss his forehead, right up near the hairline, he can feel the tears against his scalp. She rocks back into a kneeling position, drawing one of her hands down his arm until it locks his hand in hers. She looks at his face, and croaks out a short “I’m so glad you’re back”. She then turns as she stands and walks back toward the pool, shoulders betraying her continued, quiet, crying.

Before he can call out to her to come back, that he’s alright, no harm done at all, Keyleth has sat down next to him.

“Vax.”, she twists to put her arms around him and kisses him, pulling hard against him. The kiss is pressure and accompanied by more tears, but not passion. He feels, more than he hears her suck in a large breath as she removes her lips from his. She slides her head to the side of face, pressing her face into the hollow between his neck and shoulder.

She cries for a minute, maybe two. She doesn’t respond to his words, or laugh at his morose humor about what just happened. She slows her crying, kisses her way back across his cheek to his mouth, gives him another long kiss, and leaves him without saying anything else.

She walks towards the others, Vex and Percy closest as they too part from an embrace. Percy is wearing only his breeches, and looks like he has been in the water, although fresher moisture on his chest may be Vex’s tears. Percy picks up a pile of his own clothes, while Vex and Keyleth join hands and walk towards the rest of their friends.

He’s left alone again. He was gone again for a few hours, and it seems like something changed in this time. He’s trying to let it come to him. Then he realizes.

“It’s worse for them, you know. Every time it’s worse.”

Percy. Although he had reached the same conclusion the thought doesn’t come from within him. Percy is sitting against another tree, a few feet away, with his undershirt now on, and his other clothes arranged in front of him. Percy isn’t looking at his clothes or Vax, but at the backs of Vex and Keyleth, as they walk and weave a bit together, now shoulder to shoulder, heads leaned toward one another.

He nods, and Percy maybe catches his assent out of the corner of his eye, maybe he doesn’t. Either way, he speaks again.

“I credit the choice you made when your God gave you the chance to return to us. I would like to think that I would have done the same, but you actually did, and that is . . . admirable. Nevertheless, it is tearing them apart.”

He says nothing in response.

Percy continues. “Each time you could not come back, or come back less you than you were the time before. And even when you do come back, it is another reminder that there is a definite possibility that today is your last, either way. They are happy that you are back, and relieved . . . and then reminded of how this has happened before and will again, and it all crashes down like waves. They’re exhausted from grieving over you, and you are not even gone yet”.

He begins to say something, to let Percy hear that he understands, but the man continues on.

“I love them, as much as I am capable of doing so, and I know you know that. I am going to do everything I can to get them through losing you, should we survive”. He hears Percy clear his throat, choking down emotions, trying to keep a level voice. His own view is loosely focused on the backs of his assembled family, resting a few hundred yards away.

“It’s not your fault, Vaxil’dan, for playing out the hand you – we - have been dealt. It is the result of many good and bad choices we have made separately and together. What you have done has given me more than I could ever hope to deserve, more than any man has ever deserved, and I will do my best to make the most of your sacrifices. For you, for her“, another clearing of the throat, “and for Keyleth”.

“But we cannot pretend that what has happened has not happened, and that this is something any of us are equipped to deal with. They love you, and know that you love them, and that you never meant to hurt them in this way. Give a few minutes to let them work through this bout of grief, and then we can act like this is all normal.”

After a time, he responds with a chuckle around tears of his own. “I think we passed normal quite a long fucking time ago, Percival. Thank you for your words, all of them. Many of them were my own thoughts – expressed in a more flowery way, I don’t know – it, it helps to know that you understand that I never meant for this second chance to hurt them or any of you, to put you all through hell!”

Percy has stood and begun to dress, and has come a step or two closer. Looking now, he can see that Percy’s cheeks are damp as well. The taller man leans down and extends his arms to his friend, in a familiar gesture of aid. They lock hands around wrists and Percy pulls him to his feet. Though his tears are fresh, and his eyes red, there is a familiar twist to his mouth, the one he gets when he’s decided to try to be clever.

“Well then, old friend, it’s a good thing we’ve been to hell before. Let’s see if we can come up with a terrible plan to get us all back out again.”


End file.
